Critics Assail Logging Deal by Conservationist
The president of the Wilderness Society, a venerable conservation organization that has fought to protect wildlife and forests throughout the country, logged more than 400,000 board feet of timber from his western Montana ranch early this year.
The timber sale is detailed in a Nation magazine article being published today. The society’s president, G. Jon Roush, was severely criticized in the article, written by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, as having betrayed the ideals of an organization founded in 1935 by legendary wilderness advocates Aldo Leopold and Bob Marshall.
“The head of the Wilderness Society logging old growth in the Bitterroot Valley is roughly akin to the head of Human Rights Watch torturing a domestic servant,” the article said.
Roush, in a telephone interview, said the timber sale was a “model” of good forestry practices that was supervised by a forest consultant and far exceeded the requirements of Montana’s forest practices law.
Roush said he decided to sell the timber only after he was unable to sell his almost 800-acre ranch to pay for a divorce settlement and tax bills.
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